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Floor isolation layer one and two

Stacks of styrofoam

Near (what should be) 300 square meters of styrofoam arrived, it will become one layer of 11cm plates and one of 9cm plates.

drawing cutting lines on styrofoam
cutting styrofoam with a saw

Measuring and cutting is at times pretty hard. All the straight stuff is no problem, but plumbing and electricity is hard to cut out of the plates. Especially if you can’t quite see the pipes anymore when you put the plate against is to estimate the cutting lines. Things get messy real quick with a cloud of statically charged pellets everywhere you look.

a hot knife
A hot knife fuming styrofoam fumes

Hot knifes are a real improvement there. Cleaner cuts and spacings for the pipes are way easier to cut with the proper shaped knifes. Downside there is that IT SMELLS (and probably are not the best fumes to breathe). Fortunately the weather is still good and cutting can be done outside.

styrofoam floor isolation in progress
nicely cut styrofoam plate

The finishing touch is done shoving the remains that were cut away in the gaps and filling it with some construction foam to keep things nicely in place and have no thermal bridges.

Beginners mistakes to watch out for:

  • Do not catch a piece of styrofoam mid air which you just used to used to smooth out some construction foam right before you dropped it.
  • Take care you start working in the right direction with the styrofoam plates. Do NOT do it so every next plate needs to be placed _under_ the previous. Especially working your way into nasty corners.

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Staining is not my favourite job …

… but I guess it needs to happen. 12 litres of colourless stain is all over the ceiling now. One base layer and one finishing layer. Pretty damn hard to see what you have and have not done yet. When still somewhat wet, a well positioned lamp shows the glistering but that’s about it. Together with our ‘smart’ choice of ceiling (beams, planks with small grooves between them), it makes for a dirty job that someone has got to do. All for a good cause of course!

Stain is pretty expensive btw. Make sure you need it before you decide on amounts etc….

stirring stain
pouring paint
Not sure everyone would approve
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I am a carpenter!

plunge saw
panelled walls

Well… Junior. Maybe.

At least, I’m doing carpentry. Panelling the walls and thus clearing the floor from the stacked underlayment panels. It needs to be on the walls anyway and the floors need to be cleared to store and then place the floor isolation.

Takes some getting used to being consistent in having the right side up, measuring and sawing correct etc. but it is pretty satisfying to do. Especially with the proper tools :).

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New pipes for public utilities

marked for digging
cut along the dotted line
Chipping away concrete
digging the ditch
Breach underneath the wall
breach underneath the wall seen from outside
first pipe (water) in
All pipes in

That felt pretty weird. Digging through the poured concrete and underneath the wall of the house.

The new pipes for the all connections had to be dug in. As the current connections do not live up to now a days standards and the meter box will be moved, everything has to be done according to new standards. Heavy duty pipes at specific depths etc. into a standard template meter box floor. Almost gone with the four different entry points for all the different pipes.

Freed some erratic boulders from the clay while I was at it. Guess they had not seen the light of day in a few thousand years…

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First column

The first column is placed onto its support. It is positioned into the beam it supports by means of a small piece of concrete reinforcement combined with a bit of glue.

At the bottom there is two wedges for the first support. Remaining space is filled with concrete.

So, from the bottom up:

  • Foam concrete (approx 10cm)
  • 50x50cm concrete foot, 11cm high
  • 20x20cm foot
  • two wedges to fill the last few centimeters between foot and column and concrete as a filler around the wedges
  • A big 20x20cm, vertical beam
  • A horizontal 6 meter beam onto which the ceiling rests
The first support column standing firm
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Inspection

cat silhouette
cat in house under construction

Pip did the first inspection of here new home to be. She enjoyed it. Well, maybe it was just being outside for the first time since long…

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Grouting supports

Been grouting (first time of my life!) the supports underneath the walls. If all comes down it’s up to me now…

To support the walls, there is a 50cm squared concrete foot of about 10cm high. On top of that a few bricks are placed and the remaining area between the bricks and the walls were left to yours truly to fill. The walls then support the beams and the ceiling that rests on them.

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Who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue?

water, gas and sewage pipes
water pipes and drainage

The plumbing and electricity is done. Well. Part one, so all the wall panelling can be put into place. Still on gas sadly as solely electric (‘of the gas’, a hot item in the Netherlands) is still rather expensive. Next iteration…

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Electricity etc.

plans for water and electricity
modem
wall sockets to be in wooden wall

Been a while but there’s copper running through the building again. Aside the extension cords, cable drums, LED building sight lights, there’s a start of the electricity layout as it will be. Pretty hard to know if it will be enough, properly placed etc. but it’ll have to do for the coming few decades I guess.